Tuesday, March 22, 2011

You would think that after being publicly castigated by CNN reporter Nic Robertston
for falsely reporting that Libyan officials had used CNN and Reuters
reporters as "human shields" who stymied a planned British air attack on
Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli, the folks at Fox would at least
do what they usually do when called out for their lies -- just ignore it
and hope it will go away (which it usually does).

But no. Jennifer Griffin -- having stirred up the mess earlier yesterday in her initial report -- went back on the air last night to repeat the allegations to Greta Van Susteren.

A little while later, though, she came back and admitted that she had
misled Fox's viewers -- but only about the presence of Fox reporters:

GRIFFIN: Earlier today I reported that Fox News had not
gone to Gaddafi’s compound while journalists from other news outlets
such as CNN and Reuters had, in fact, gone.

I’ve since learned that FOX
did indeed go. Tonight I learned that although reporter Steve Harrigan
opted not to go and instead remained back at his hotel - he wanted to
stay on the air, I’m told, to provide full coverage of what was going on
in Libya. He did, in fact, send a security guard with a camera to
Gaddafi’s compound with the journalists from the other news outlets. I
did not know about that earlier today. I became aware of that this
evening. That was my mistake and I apologize for the error.

Ah, but that wasn't enough. Griffin again doubled down on her claim that these reporters had been used as "human shields":

GRIFFIN: But what is being lost in this discussion is
that the Libyan government is using journalists as human shields. There
is frustration among military officials that those journalists are being
– are going to those sites and have prevented air strikes such as the
one that was called off by the British earlier today.

There are, of course, all kinds of problems with this charge -- the foremost being that Libyan officials could not have known that the airstrikes were being planned for the brief period the journalists were there.
It would have been impossible for them to have knowingly timed the
visit in order to use the reporters as shields and stymie the attack.

The incident involved a trip Sunday night arranged by
Libyan authorities to the Gadhafi compound that had been bombed earlier
by coalition forces.

Robertson said the 40 or so journalists on the bus weren't told ahead
of time where they were going, and that there was no attempt by the
Libyan minders to restrict anyone from getting on or off the bus before
they left.

Upon arrival, the journalists spent about 20 minutes at the damaged
building and then were hurried to a tent where they waited with Gadhafi
supporters for him to appear, Robertson said. Gadhafi never showed up,
and the journalists went back to their bus and departed, according to
Robertson.

A government official even pushed him onto the bus as he tried to broadcast a live shot at the end, Robertson said.

"If they wanted to use us as human shields ... they would have kept
us there longer," Robertson said. "That's not what happened."

Surely, no matter how big a dent the reporters put in the
British plans to strike the compound, this was not the only window of
opportunity to do so. Griffin did not address that point, nor did she
comment on why, if Fox News had been concerned about being used as a
human shield, as she had previously reported, it had sent someone - a
non-reporter, no less - to the compound anyway.

Griffin has been getting more airtime on military and
national-security stories ever since Catherine Herridge -- far and away
Fox's best on-air reporter, and perhaps the sole real journalist at the
network -- got crossways with Fox executives over gender discrimination.
It's obvious she lacks Herridge's experience and savvy -- especially
the ability to tell when she's being manipulated by a lazy Fox colleague
and an anonymous military official.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.